Jiné životy Hynka Harry – Dotlačil Jakub (2014)

The 1860s. Czech society is coming alive and claiming its place in the monarchy. Political parties and Czech newspapers are developing. Ullmann's Provisional Theatre still stands on the right bank of the Vltava, but plans for the construction of the National Theatre, which will one day engulf it, already exist. Czech society is discovering the charm of associations, and the fame of some of them survives to this day: Umělecká beseda, Hlahol, Sokol. Many others will not be so fortunate. The book 'Other Lives' by Hynek Harra tells the story of one such association. It is the tale of the first Czech parapsychological society, whose members sought to lay the scientific foundations for the study of telepathy and spiritism, even before most scientists concluded that telepathy and spiritism had no scientific basis. The novel combines the reality of the 19th century with genuinely proposed parapsychological theories. From this foundation grows a fantastical story about tolerance, national and human identity, but above all, it is the story of Hynek Harra, a young mathematics teacher who one Sunday stops by a meeting of Czech parapsychologists, setting in motion events that will completely change his life. As a gifted medium, he travels to Berlin, gets involved in the war between Austria and Prussia, only to ultimately discover that everything is...